


Bring Him Peace

by bhaer



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Marius Pontmercy needs a hug: the musical, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-14 12:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bhaer/pseuds/bhaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Marius visited Courfeyrac's grave and one time he didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The first time

1.

 

Paulette is adventurous in the worst way possible. Marius agrees to take her for a walk one Saturday to soothe Cosette’s nerves. Father and daughter walk hand in hand for a few blocks, looking like a painting and Marius begins to feel rather pleased with himself. For all of Cosette’s complaining, Paulette is behaving like a little angel, talking happily about the books she wants to learn to read. She’s only three and already knows her letters. Marius is fiercely proud and congratulates himself on his newborn genius. 

The newborn genius, sensing her caretaker’s lack of interest, bolts down the streets of Paris without a word, laughing maniacally, her brown braids flying behind her.

It’s almost fifteen minutes before Marius catches Paulette. She’s laughing and holding roses stolen from the front yard of some diplomat and Marius, feeling much older than twenty-eight, is gasping for air. He remembers when he was younger and walked all over Paris in the night.

“Father, I found a little city!” Paulette cries; throwing flower petals as she wildly gesticulates. Marius looks at his surroundings for the first time and with no small sensation of shock, realizes Paulette’s led him into a graveyard. A nice graveyard certainly; the grand mausoleums and vague odor of lily-of-the-valley attest to that. No wonder Paulette thought it was a “little city”. Still, Marius feels a tug in his chest.

Paulette, who has no relationship with death yet, is happily exploring. Marius watches her. He is ashamed of how his skin prickles and his gut lurches. He is deeply uncomfortable. 

“Father, how do you say this name? Coo… Coof…” Paulette sounds out, standing over a particularly magnificent obelisk. Marius tiredly walks to her, leans over the read the inscription and for a moment feels so dizzy he hopes he does not faint.

“Laurent de Courfeyrac.”

The words echo in his head, dredging up feelings he’d successfully kept buried for nearly six years. He has a sudden image of his old friend laughing, showing all his straight white teeth and he hiccupped with joy at his own joke. 

And then the rush is gone and Marius is standing in a well-maintained cemetery with his young daughter. He had avoided looking up Courfeyrac’s grave for years, frightened to encounter it would shove him into a sea of memories best left alone. There is no emotional suffocation. All Marius feels is hot, sticky and slightly annoyed with Paulette.

“Father, what’s thirty-two minus eight?” Paulette chats happily. She pushes a small white hand over the letters.

“It’s twenty-four. He was twenty-four when he died.”

Marius knows it without bothering with arithmetic. Courfeyrac had celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday with gusto and Marius had had too much drink that night. His memories of the party were distorted and blurry but he was sure he had been sick outside the tavern and Combeferre, who he always viewed as rather harsh and inhuman, took his pulse afterwards.

“Is he in the ground? With grandfather? Does he know grandfather?” Paulette asks with childish simplicity. She has no memory of her father’s grandfather but is vaguely aware that she lives in what had been his house and is fond of asking about him.

“His body is in the ground, yes, but his spirit is in heaven.”

The same trite, sickly sweet speech he supposes would have given him comfort as a child. Marius can’t imagine Courfeyrac in heaven, the way he can Enjolras. He supposes he’d never really thought about it. His stark Catholicism urges him him Courfeyrac’s soul must have survived but the graveyard feels so empty.

Marius suddenly hates the memorial. It's ostentatious and everything Courfeyrac would have hated.

“Is twenty-four young? Did he get the cholera? Does it say if he got the cholera?” Paulette wheedles. Several of Paulette’s young friends have lost parents or older siblings to the disease. 

Marius examines the stone. There's a family crest and a dried up wreath of violets, but no cause of death. They couldn’t have carved Courfeyrac’s proud face frozen in terror as he held up his pistol at the enemy, clearly struggling to hold in screams… 

Marius looks away. He's uncomfortable with the grief that twists ruthlessly inside him. He hasn’t felt those old feelings in such a long time. Not since Paulette was born. 

“He died in battle.”

Marius remembers, with a pang, that he had never actually seen Courfeyrac fall. He had only seem him clutching a bayonet scrape on his arm, covered in dirt and gunpowder. Marius had known he would die. He was practically dead.

“Does it say? What battle was it? Did he die with your father in Waterloo?” Paulette says. She is clearly getting overexcited.

Marius considers telling her the truth; that this is the grave of a friend who had died fighting for his beliefs.

He looks at Paulette, her blue eyes shining and her lace dress torn and grass-stained. The only battles Paulette knows ares in the fairytales her mother reads to  her. 

“It says it was a battle but nothing else. Let’s go, Mama will want you home before dinner.” 

It takes all of Marius’ will not to run out of graveyard. He settles for a brisk walk, holding Paulette’s hand so tightly she cries that he's hurting her. 


	2. The second time

 2.

 

“You didn’t have to bring flowers. Courf wouldn’t have cared.”

The sound of Marius’ own voice annoys him. It’s blisteringly hot and his suit sticks to his skin. Cosette, like some sort of sweatless angel is glowing in her pink gown, apparently immune to high temperatures. Marius feels annoyed at her for looking so cool until the annoyance melts away to adoration. 

“One brings flowers to a grave. I’m sure your friend _will_ appreciate the affect.” Cosette emphasizes the present tense and smooth down the ribbons of her bonnet, her giant bouquet of hydrangeas tucked under her arm.

“He’s been dead for a while. I rather hoped to forget about the incident.”

But Cosette, who still occasionally cries over her father’s silver candlesticks, just pats his arm awkwardly and smiles.

“This is good for you.”

And that’s that.

They’re on the grounds of the cemetery now and with Cosette by his side, Marius feels calm. He tells himself to take slow, deep breaths and focuses on the way his wife’s hair curls around the ends. It’s the same musky brown as Paulette’s.

Marius leads Cosette inwards, trying to replicate his path as he chased Paulette. Part of him hopes they can’t find the site but after a few minutes of tramping through the grass, Cosette cries excitedly that she sees it and he’s trapped.

Cosette places the flowers down tenderly in front of the gargantuan obelisk and places her hands together as if she’s praying. Marius thinks warmly that she’s a better Christian than he could hope to be.

“Dear Monsieur de Courfeyrac,” Cosette begins, speaking into the empty air in front of them.

“He hated the participle.”

“Dear Monsieur Courfeyrac…”

Cosette pauses, having only thought so far ahead. Her faces lights up suddenly and she continues.

“Hello. I am Cosette Pontmercy and I’ve heard such wonderful things about you from my husband Marius.”

There’s silence. Marius half-expects Courfeyrac’s decayed skeleton to claw it’s way through the earth but not even a bird sings. Cosette looks painfully earnest speaking to the granite and Marius places a sweaty arm over her shoulders.

“He’s been gone for six years.”

Cosette frowns.

“Thank you for giving my husband a place to stay when he needed one and companionship when he was alone.”

Marius remembers Courfeyrac’s flat, surprisingly clean and always with extra cheese and tobacco in the cupboard.

Cosette sighs deeply and closes her eyes for a few moments. When she opens them, she’s blinking back tears. 

“Is there anything you want to say?” She whispers, voice trembling.

Marius looks at the monument. He tries to summon an overpowering emotion to please Cosette, who’s openly weeping now. He wishes he could feel for her. He wishes he could allow her to share in his private grief.

He feels empty.

He thinks of his cases, unfinished on his desk. He thinks of the dinner party Cosette is throwing next week. He thinks of his new lawyer friends who invited him to lunch Friday. He thinks of Paulette’s new doll, who she insists be allowed to sit with them while they eat. 

“I’m sorry.”

Marius thinks, vaguely, that he’s too disconnected from Courfeyrac to be particularly touched by a hole in the ground. He’s been disconnected from that life for a long time.

“You did nothing wrong, dear.”

Cosette is holding his face in her cool, dry hands. Marius wills himself to cry but only feels hungry and sweaty.

“I want to go,” he says quietly.

This time he runs out of the graveyard, Cosette trailing after him. 


	3. The third time

3.

 

“Did you know Laurent?” 

The girl is unnaturally pretty, and Marius struggles to focus on what she’s saying.

“We were roommates for a time.”

The girl claps her hands together excitedly and nearly drops her bouquet of daisies.

“Marius Pontmercy? He told me about you.”

Marius blushes, feeling stupid. Coming back had been a whim. He had miscalculated the time of a meeting with a client, and finding them busy, figured wandering through the cemetery was as good a way to kill an hour as any.

“I’m Musichetta. I knew him through a friend of a friend but I suppose there’s no one who _really_ knew the boys to mourn them, so I like to come and let them know I haven’t forgotten their sacrifice.”

Musichetta. The name was familiar but Marius fought against remembering. The past year had been a struggle; ignoring the onslaught of nightmares and unprompted recollections. He didn’t need more of it.

“You knew about the ABC…?” Marius says.

Musichetta smiles and puts her hands on her hips. 

“Of course. Poor dear is probably shaking his fists in heaven at this ridiculous bourgeois monstrosity. His idiot family still says he died of cholera. Isn’t that sick?” Musichetta cries, brandishing her daisies at Marius’ chest.

“I agree.”

It feels hollow in his chest but Musichetta smiles widely.

“Daisies. They were his favorite flower. He used to pick scores of them and make little these crowns. The grisettes loved them. Of course, nothing but blood-red roses over here,” Musichetta growls, kicking a wreath good-naturedly. “I guess anything else wouldn’t be _proper_ enough for him.”

“I didn’t know,” Marius says quietly. “About the daisies, I mean.”

“It’s hard to figure out what they would have wanted. Courfeyrac’s easy, because of the crowns and such. I _know_ my Joly liked baby’s breath and I don’t know if Lesgles liked flowers at all really, so I get him baby’s breath as well because he’d want what Joly had.” Musichetta’s chatter is oddly comforting and Marius finds his pulse slowing.

“Do you go to all the graves?” Marius asks.

“Lord, of course. Don’t you? I think I’d go mad if I didn’t feel like I could _do_ something after that awful night pacing in my room while my boys got shot. I can’t exactly finish their work but I do like to visit them when I can,” Musichetta says happily. She leans down and places the daisies over the engraved name. Marius envies her thoughtless joy. 

“I’ve only been here twice before. I think I try to forget, to be honest.” Marius plays with the hem of his coat, looking away from Musichetta’s warm, earnest face.

“It’s hard. I can’t deny that. Courf… I didn’t know Courfeyrac very well but I know that he wouldn’t want you to be in pain, but he wouldn’t want you to… hide the pain away either.” Musichetta’s voice is gentle, almost maternal. Marius kicks a rock viciously and feels stupid immediately afterwards.

Something is starting to well up in his chest.

“I have to go,” he whispers.

“I hope I didn’t disturb you. I’m not expert on… well, anything and my friendship with Courfeyrac was a passing one. I’ll let you be and go find dear, darling Combeferre. Then I think it’s Prouvaire that’s next.”

Musichetta says their names so reverently that Marius almost cries then and there to hear his lively, robust friends being spoken of like sickly children. He remembers _dear, darling_ Combeferre scaring him senseless, not lying still and having flowers thrown at his head. 

“No, my… My wife is pregnant and doesn’t like to be alone for long. I have to go.”

It’s not a technical lie but Marius also knows no story could account for the way he sprints away, sucking in his tears until the cemetery is half a mile away.


	4. Marius brings a friend.

4.

Where Paulette is fearless, Laurent is timid. Marius coaxes him through the maze of tombstones with promises of candy and perhaps a new toy. The toddler miserably persists in complaining the whole way and nervously looking around for any lingering ghosts.

When they reach the obelisk, Laurent hides behind his father’s boots.

“Who is it?” Laurent squeaks, removing a sticky hand from his mouth to point at the engraved name.

“A dear friend. You were named for him.”

Laurent’s eyes widen.

“ _He_ was called Laurent too?”

“Yes.”

This subdues Laurent for a few minutes. Somehow the sharing of a name with the corpse calms him and he doesn’t cry or whine while he father carefully brushes fallen leaves off the monument and arranges his bouquet of roses neatly.

“Am I _very_ like him?”

The question startles Marius and he considers the too small, drooling boy sitting thoughtfully on the grass. In truth, Courfeyrac’s namesake doesn’t resemble him in the slightest.

Marius thinks.

“Are you brave?” He asks.

Laurent, in spite of his earlier crying that the graveyard would be filled with goblins, nods furiously.

“Then you must try to be even braver. Laurent Courfeyrac was the bravest, kindest person I have ever known.”

Laurent runs this over in his mind.

“I don’t need candy for seeing your friend,” he whispers. Marius feels his chest swell from pride and imagines Courfeyrac laughing at the scene. He reminds himself that Courfeyrac is dead. If his soul survived, he’s somewhere happy, not watching Marius blunder his way through parenting.

“I suppose we’ll have to get some for Paulette, anyway,” Marius says, watching a smile fill Laurent’s round face. 

“We have to get the orange kind that she likes. She’s so sad because that stupid boy hasn’t written to her. I _hate_ him.” Laurent continues to chatter about Paulette’s adolescent fling with no small amount of vitriol thrown at the young man who rejected his sister.

As they walk out of the graveyard, Marius considers that maybe his son is more like Courfeyrac than he thought. 


End file.
